


library; noun: place filled with infinite boredom

by Anniely



Series: Shaw and Root's excellent adventures [1]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: (what counts as fluff in my book anyway), F/F, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-13
Updated: 2015-02-13
Packaged: 2018-03-12 06:02:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3346229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anniely/pseuds/Anniely
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shaw gets to play babysitter in a hot-librarian outfit, while John gets to shoot people. </p><p>Life's not fair, teenagers are the worst, and Root's enjoying herself far too much (someone's so going out the window, before the end of the day).</p>
            </blockquote>





	library; noun: place filled with infinite boredom

'Tell me again why John couldn't take care of the kid,' Shaw mumbles, randomly stuffing books into already too-full shelves with much more vigor than those last-century paperbacks are probably able to tolerate without disintegrating. She's also trying to keep an eye on her number.

 

'Mr. Reese is already working on another number.' Finch's voice in her ear is not nearly as sympathetic as Shaw thinks she deserves, given her situation.

 

'In a bank, Finch! I could have done bank-chick. Instead I'm stuck in a high school library. Do you know how many teenagers I have found hiding in corners, glued together at the lips, so far? Too many!'

 

 _Hamlet_ goes next to a book on Freudian theory (exactly where it belongs) and _The complete Shakespeare Sonnets_ goes on top of the bookcase (it's all _elaborate love bla bla_ , anyway).

 

'I'm going to throw someone out the window, honestly.'

 

'If I may remind you, Miss Shaw, that is exactly what happened the last time you were working a number in a bank.'

 

'The guy provoked me, Finch. Besides, he only fell two stories. A bit of physical therapy and I bet he's fine, by now.'

 

She pushes her glasses up; Finch insisted she wear the damn things. Something about making her look the part. Shaw throws the rest of the books onto a mostly empty shelf and _argh_ s. The glasses are already sliding down her nose, again, and she's seriously considering gluing them to her face.

 

'How am I going to keep an eye on the kid when he's in class, anyway?' she asks.

 

She makes her way to the front desk, pushing through her fifteenth face-sucking, underaged couple of the day.

 

'Reinforcement is on the way,' Finch says.

 

'Oh, please, not Fusco. If I have to listen to him rattling on about his kid scoring those goals in his last game for one more minute - '

 

'Not Detective Fusco,' Finch interrupts her.

 

That only leaves one other Looney Tunes member.

 

'That might be fun.'

 

'Please, just refrain from setting fire to anything this time.'

 

'Relax, Finch,' Shaw says, grinning, and slumps down into her (very uncomfortable) swivel chair. It's a leftover from World War I, she's sure, because it's about as comfortable as that 1-by-1-meter cell she's been trapped in for three days, once. Right now, it's trying to fall apart right under her.

 

When she picks herself up off the floor, half of the chair in her hand, Shaw finds herself looking directly at the top of a head belonging to a sixteen-year-old, who looks like a twelve-year-old, and is currently trying to undress her with his eyes.

 

'Why don't you take your extremely beardless baby-face out of my cleavage and go get yourself some milk or something, before I prove to you just how much damage can be done with a paperclip?' she hisses, waving the plastic piece of chair in her hand in front of his eyes.

 

The kid does a double-take, or more like a quadruple-take, and runs out of the library so fast it's a miracle he doesn't leave scorch marks on the orange linoleum. Shaw kicks the chair pieces under the table with a huff. It's not that she hates kids, per se. They are just much harder to ignore than average, stupid adults.

 

'Did you just threaten a teenager?' Finch asks, the sound of typing she could hear coming to a halt.

 

Shaw imagines him sitting at his computers, pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance; it makes the fact that she just basically fell off her chair a lot easier to endure.

 

'John would have stared him to death,' she says, 'Doesn't that make you glad you sent me here?'

 

Whatever Finch was about to say gets cut off, as she taps her earpiece (it started with an indignant _Miss Shaw_ , so, really, how important could it have been?).

 

She looks across the room to make sure that her number is still drawing air; he's a gangly kid, long limbs awkwardly perched on a bright orange plastic chair. Everything in this library seems to be orange: The floor, the chairs, the curtains, the door. It's like being trapped inside a pumpkin.

The kid is still leaning over three books he's got spread out in front of him, and should be fine unless it's possible to die from a papercut or biting your fingernails.

 

'Excuse me,' someone says from behind her, 'I'm looking for a book.'

 

Root's standing behind her, hair in a neat bun, red lipstick, that probably kills people on its days off, on her lips, wearing high-waisted black pants, knee-high boots and a blouse with honest-to-God lace on the sleeves.

 

Shaw lets her eyes wander for a moment; she's pretty sure she knows where the guns and the knife are hidden.

 

'And what are you supposed to be?' she asks, leaning against the edge of her desk, crossing her arms.

 

'Substitute teacher.'

 

'Isn't that a bit of a regression from your usual standard?'

 

'Well, let's see. I was a nanny once and got puked on. I was a stewardess and got groped by three different guys. I broke their hands, but still,' Root says, using her fingers to tick off the different occupations.

 

'Oh, and I worked for your old boss, which were the most boring few months of my life. Except for meeting you, of course.'

 

'Of course,' Shaw repeats.

 

Chairs, zip-ties and flat irons; the good old days.

 

Root brushes a fleck of dust off Shaw's shoulder, her hand lingering just a second too long (Shaw doesn't mind, exactly, but technically they are working).

 

'Root.'

 

'It's Miss Scully, today.'

 

Shaw stares.

 

'I'm not calling you that.'

 

'You may call me anything you like, Spooky.'

 

In the background, a girl falls off her chair trying to kiss her boyfriend across the aisles. Their number curses softly, sucking on his thumb. Shaw messages her temples; it's going to be a long day.

 

 

 

In the end, the day isn't nearly as bad as Shaw had feared it would be. She throws a book on UFO sightings at a couple hiding behind a potted plant, steals a new chair from the principal's office and Root smuggles some gummy bears into the library in between her classes.

 

And then the janitor turns out to be a hitman hired to kill their number. Apparently the kid's the illegitimate son of some big (dead) bank guy whose widow really doesn't want to share her inheritance. When the janitor/hitman drops his mop and reaches into his blue garbage bag, producing a gun, Shaw finally gets to see some action.

 

(That the janitor/hitman trips over his own mop and just happens to fall out the window really isn't her fault.)

 

 

 

Shaw slips away before the police arrive, throwing her glasses into a trash can in the parking lot. Root falls into step beside her, half a block later.

 

'So, what are you doing with the rest of the day?' she asks.

 

'I'm going to drink and then I'm going to sleep.'

 

'Want some company?'

 

'Am I going to get any sleep if you accompany me?' Shaw asks. The last time Root _accompanied_ her, she stole the remote and subjected Shaw to two hours of _Jeopardy!_. That was _not_ what Shaw had had in mind.

 

Root leans in close.

 

'Eventually,' she says.

 

Shaw almost smiles; almost.

 

'Fine. But if you steal the blanket again, I'm pushing you out the bed.'

 

'You say the sweetest things.'

 

 

 

It's one hour of _Jeopardy!_ , this time, but Shaw's not going to complain; the rest of the night makes up for it (sleep's overrated, anyway).

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted something nice; so I wrote something nice. I am also very fond of allusions and innuendoes (just in case you didn't notice).
> 
> I want to state that the definition of libraries given in the title does in no way reflect the author's personal opinion of libraries.


End file.
